Off-site storage vendor Iron Mountain now has a way to store data on-site. The company just spent $112 million for archiving vendor Mimosa Systems.
Mimosa is one of the things I love about this job. I first met Mimosa execs, including CEO T.M. Ravi, when Redmond magazine was just getting going and Mimosa was a feisty startup. The company made a lot of noise and got a lot of attention for its NearPoint tool, which is now a line of NearPoint tools.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/24/20100 comments
If you thought the breakup of Britney Spears and K-Fed was messy, HP and Cisco are bringing it to a whole new level. Until recently, HP was a Cisco systems integrator. Then two things went wrong: Cisco entered the server market and HP bought 3Com.
Like Britney, Cisco was the one to break things off, fearing that HP would use inside info against the networking giant. Feeling slighted, HP countered that plenty of competitors also cooperate.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/24/20101 comments
SQL Server 2005 and 2008 will get some new features late this year when service packs for both ship.
SQL Server 2005 is winding down, so this will probably be the last pack for this package. Unfortunately, Microsoft didn't release any details on either of the packs.
Do you use SQL Server? If so, why choose that over Oracle, DB2 or any other enterprise database? Send your thoughts to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 02/22/20100 comments
Lately, Mac users have had most of the newest Office features, but were either stuck with -- or blessed with -- the older-style pull-down interface. But later this year, those folks will have to use the ribbon interface if they want the latest goodies in Mac Office 2011.
Besides requiring the ribbon, Mac Office 2011 will include Office 2010 features such as collaboration, social networking and more sophisticated presentations.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/22/201016 comments
Microsoft last week released a new Windows 7 anti-piracy tool with a unique marketing proposition: By allowing Microsoft to check your PC, the machine will actually be more secure.
At first blush, this sounds like a cop protecting your safety through a strip search. But Microsoft counters that there are as many as 70 exploits that attack Windows activation files, and this tool can make sure these files are protected.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/22/20104 comments
Doug asked readers last week for their computer crash sob stories. And they delivered:
My worst nightmare was with a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. My wife was a first-year teacher, using it with WordStar to create her final exam to give the next day. At 11:30 p.m., WordStar locked up and wouldn't run. I was able to get into debug mode and, memory page by memory page, recover the text in memory and dump it to a printer. She then took it and typed it up on ditto sheets to make up the test. We finished up about 6:30 a.m., just in time for her to leave for school and give the exam.
That crash led to us getting a brand-new, dual-diskette IBM PC the next week.
-Dan
Mustang BBS, nine nodes split between two Windows 95 computers. If they didn't get rebooted twice a day, they froze up like Hillary Clinton at a nudist convention. Monstrous memory leaks combined with DOS-based code and communications simply did not make for uber-stability. If, and only if, they got their twice daily reboots, they ran like Timex built 'em.
One Pentium 75-based system would have been able to handle the system just fine, if I could have loaded enough com ports to allow all the modems to run. But by the time that became feasible, in later builds of Windows, the BBS era was pretty much a footnote in communications history.
-John
I upgraded to Windows ME immediately when it was released, and by far my worst system crash happened with that OS. It was taking a very long time to boot up one day so I rebooted it, and when it came up, it said that there was no OS installed. I looked at the file system and there were only two files there and they were gibberish. I lost everything.
-Anonymous
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/21/20100 comments
A recent survey of Windows 7 users suggests that they're mostly pretty happy with the OS. But a few of you, like Doug, are still having issues:
I suppose I'm "pretty happy," but I still have XP boxes around, and I am afraid to get rid of them. Windows 7 64-bit is pretty good, but I was expecting better. Pros: fast, as you'd expect a new piece of hardware to be; after getting used to the search box, I love never using cascaded menus again; and my kids only want to use the new computer because they say their homework gets done a lot faster.
Cons: a new HP computer has serious problems printing to an HP Photosmart 2400 printer (OK, it's 5 years old, but please); Quicken runs but has serious printing problems, too; Check Point VPN software doesn't support 64-bit; and annoying magic directories like "My Documents" (or sometimes "Doug's Documents") have now been replaced (yeah!) with equally confusing magic "libraries." Why can't we all just learn to deal with path names?
-Todd
I was having an occasional blue screen when trying to wake my desktop from sleep (I have Windows 7 Ultimate x64). That latest reliability update -- the one people have said is making their systems unreliable -- seems to have fixed it for me. I'm speculating that it's the issue with the log in screen saver, although my symptom was a blue screen rather than unresponsiveness.
-Dave
I haven't experienced any crashes when Windows 7 sleeps, but I have noted a couple of recurring anomalies when it wakes back up. First, if I was logged out when Windows 7 went to sleep, when I wake it back up and attempt to log in, my first attempt always fails. No message is displayed. Instead, the first time I select a user and enter the password, Windows 7 says that it's logging in, but then just returns to the top-level screen with the user list. A second log-in attempt at this point will then successfully log in.
And second, sometimes when I wake up Windows 7 from a sleep state, it refuses to restore the monitor display. Instead, the monitor goes right back into power save mode. The only way to restore the system is to force it off by holding down the power button, and then restarting. When the system comes back up, it then restores itself to a waking state. The system does not appear to go through a normal boot sequence when power is reapplied -- it simply emerges from the previous sleep state. Very odd.
-Anonymous
Given the amount of custom-rolled software out there, it should not surprise anyone that Windows 7 has a lot of software issues. With that said, most of the issues I personally have had with Windows 7 are with software vendors' profound desire the make it look different. For most of the interface changes they made, I can think of no functional reason other than to make it look different.
I have been able to fix most of the issues I have had, but I am only running out-of-the-box COTS on my desktop. Some of the more complex issues with drivers and such are still nagging. I think Windows 7 will probably be a pretty good operating system by SP3. Not better than the one it replaced (XP) but good.
-Anonymous
After doing the (free) manufacturer's upgrade on my laptop from Vista to Windows 7, I no longer can use the built-in microphone for voice recognition. It works otherwise for sound recording. I can use an external mic plugged into an external jack as that works. Go figure.
-Anonymous
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/19/20100 comments
Windows 7 is a major leap forward, but it's by no means perfect. I mentioned recently how my Windows 7 Latitude D520 hangs when it goes to sleep, leaving me to sort through recovered documents. (Why is it that when I auto-save every five minutes, the recovered document is often a shell of its former self?)
Others experience Windows 7 bombing out in various ways, prompting Microsoft to release a series of patches for various system hangs. Unfortunately, none of these patches address my specific problem. Of course I could just shut down my laptop at night, but that actually involves me pushing a few buttons.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/19/201012 comments
It usually takes three iterations for Microsoft to rule a market. In the case of mobile phones, it may take seven.
Microsoft has been in the mobile PDA and phone space for a decade-and-a-half with little success. Its Palm alternatives were kludgey and beat on batteries worse than my daughter's Barbie Jeep. And Windows phones were just like Windows PCs -- they crashed (and more than the last five laps at Daytona).
Fifteen years later, Redmond is still struggling, and is getting particularly rocked by new mobile competitors Apple and Google.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/19/20100 comments
A former Microsoft exec recently wrote in the NY Times that Microsoft's biggest groups would rather compete with each other than innovate. Some readers aren't that surprised:
Brass is probably right. But let's face it: It is easier to sit by and maintain than to take chances and innovate. Risk can get you fired if it doesn't pay off.
-Craig
An interesting aspect of large companies is that they tend to not like cannibalizing their own products. Business history is full of such stories. They are making money, so why change? So when I read Dick Brass' comments, it did not come as a shock. Office brings in big cash for Microsoft, so why make changes for a tablet PC that the Office group thinks no one will use?
That's where innovators come into the picture. They take a chance, and if the market likes it, it takes off. Apple has been waiting for 25 years for its easy-to-use interface to become an overnight success. Apple has less market share and has been forced to try new ideas to keep alive. Remember Apple's Lisa or the Newton?
-Andrew
The market generally doesn't want innovation in Windows or Office. Businesses and individuals have invested heavily in learning how to use the tools; they don't want to relearn from scratch every three years, even if it is a better product. The big changes in user interface are part of why Office 2007 didn't get adopted as quickly as MS hoped; ditto Vista. Tinker with the parts the public doesn't see.
-James
When you have a castle, you protect the castle. When you are cold, wet, and hungry, you can be very creative.
-Cbcalvin
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/17/20100 comments
Visual Studio 2010 hit a minor glitch recently when beta testers complained of performance issues. Microsoft took a very public stance, detailing the issues and pushing back the product release.
Now VS 2010 is back on track, having reached release candidate status, which means it's feature-complete and basically tuned and ready to go. Testers think the extra time is worth it as the product is far faster than the beta.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/17/20100 comments
Windows 7 users getting warnings that their batteries are on their last legs thought it was all a bug. Instead, it's simply Windows 7 giving more detailed information about the true state of your battery. If Windows 7 says the thing is dying, chances are it's really dying.
The alerts come when the battery is operating at 40 percent capacity. Hey, I'd rather listen to Windows and change the battery than lose work when the laptop shuts down! I've been there before.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/17/20100 comments